National Evaluation of CHIPRA Quality Demonstration Grant

In February 2010, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services awarded 10 grants, funding 18 states, to improve health care quality and delivery systems for children enrolled in Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program. Funded by the Children's Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act of 2009, the Quality Demonstration Grant Program aims to identify effective, replicable strategies for enhancing quality of care for children. As a group, the 18 demonstration states are implementing 52 projects in five general categories:

• Using quality measures to improve child health care
• Applying health information technology for quality improvement
• Implementing provider-based delivery models
• Investigating a model format for pediatric electronic health records
• Assessing the utility of other innovative approaches to enhance quality

Mathematica’s evaluation is assessing whether the states achieved their objectives and evaluating which strategies proved most effective. We are using a mixed-methods approach to examine project outcomes, including a comparison group design to estimate impacts of selected demonstrations on services used by children in participating pediatric and family practices. We are working with two subcontractors: the Urban Institute and AcademyHealth.

A description of the demonstration programs, our evaluation approach, and links to publically available reports are available online at http://www.ahrq.gov/policymakers/chipra/demoeval/index.html.